The SX-A6MK2 and SX-A9MK2 amps each split the left and right channel amplifiers and power supplies into entirely separate halves, with the former using Twin EL Transformers while the latter gets Twin Toroidal Transformers.  The A6MK2 packs 60W and the A9MK2 70W, with the latter having a USB input among its other connections for playing media directly from an iPod or other PMP.

As for the PD-D6MK2 and PD-D9MK2, they get Burr-Brown and Twin Wolfson D/A converters respectively together with 16-bit to 24-bit upscaling on the D9MK2.  All four Pioneer Elite G-Clef components will go on sale later this month; the SX-A6MK2 and SX-A9MK2 will be priced at $700 and $1,500 respectively, while the two CD players, the PD-D6MK2 and PD-D9MK2, will be priced at $700 and $1,500 respectively.

Press Release:

New Pioneer Elite G-Clef Components are Pure High Fidelity

High-Design CD Players and Amplifiers Provide Music Lovers with AIR Studios-Certified Experience

Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. today announced new G-Clef components including luxury CD players and amplifiers that bring a professional-grade listening experience into the home or office. The high-style Elite G-Clef line includes two stereo amplifiers, SX-A6MK2 and SX-A9MK2, and two CD players, PD-D6MK2 and PD-D9MK2, all engineered with the purest approach to audio component design. All models are offered at affordable price points, for audio enthusiasts looking for high-end sound without the extravagant cost often found in prestigious audiophile gear.

Each of the models is fine-tuned and certified by internationally-respected AIR Studio’s sound engineers to ensure the most accurate recreation of the original recording possible. To earn that certification, Pioneer hand-selected state of the art internal components that accurately deliver signals to create a dynamic two-channel hi-fi experience. The new, more efficient power supply circuitry is highly responsive to demanding musical content and is designed for superior heat resistance to guarantee a warm, analog-like sound.

“The new G-Clef series is a perfect example of product developed with meticulous attention to detail at every step in the process,” said Tim Vine-Lott, technical director, AIR Studios. “Pioneer and AIR Studios have worked together for ten years developing products down to the screws. We’re proud to put our stamp on products that exceed our requirements.”

Elite G-Clef CD/SACD Players

For the purest digital to analog conversion expected by discerning audiophiles, the PD-D6MK2 (SRP: $700) and the PD-D9MK2 (SRP: $1,500) CD/SACD players feature Burr-Brown and Twin Wolfson D/A converters, respectively. The Pioneer exclusive technology, Legato Link Conversion PRO, utilizes complex algorithms to recreate the ultra-high harmonics lost in the digital conversion process resulting in smooth, natural sound. Additionally, Hi-Bit technology increases the sound data length from 16-bit to 24-bit to provide clear, rich audio, even from compressed MP3 files.

Both models are finished in glossy black with blue LCD displays. The PD-D9MK2 features a Honeycomb Chassis design, which contains hexagon shaped imprints in the metal plates that help to dissipate vibrations and alleviate jitter. Additional weight and stability features help to shield optical components from ambient interference that could cause imprecise sound. The PD-D6MK2 features an aluminum front panel, while the PD-D9MK2 touts a rigid under-base construction, TAOC Hi-Carbon composite metal feet and a full aluminum casing.

Elite G-Clef Integrated Stereo Amplifiers

The Elite G-Clef amplifiers feature a Twin Mono Symmetrical construction design to maintain electrical isolation between both channels from input to output. The left and right channel amplifiers and high efficiency power supplies are totally independent and exact mirror images of each other. This construction is also designed to minimize the signal path of each circuit block, providing minimal distortion of signal quality and clear, equal channel separation for superior sonic fidelity.

The SX-A6MK2 (SRP: $700) features Twin EL Transformers and the SX-A9MK2 (SRP: $1,500)employs Twin Toroidal Transformers, which are highly efficient with very low magnetic leakage. Both components increase available power, prevent signal interference and virtually eliminate noise even at extremely low frequencies. The SX-A9MK2 model is also equipped with a USB input, allowing high-quality transmissions of higher bit-rate music files such as an MPEG or FLAC from any enthusiast’s digital music library.

“The new components were born out of partnership between Pioneer and AIR Studios sound engineers working hand in hand to produce the highest quality sound possible,” said Dave Bales, marketing and product planning, home
electronics division at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. “G-Clef products are a culmination of all we’ve learned over a 70-year legacy in audio excellence.”

The Elite G-Clef CD/SACD players and amplifiers will be available in August, 2010.

[Image credit: sparkieblues]

I think that when archaeologists dig up core samples of our garbage dumps, there will be an anomalous gap where art and culture seemed to take a nose dive. Right around the end of the 20th century through the first couple decades of the 21st century, it’s going to appear as if we all lost our minds and our collective aesthetic taste fell off our tongues.

I’m thinking of our artwork; starting with music. Since the dawn of recording and playback technology, there has been a constant push and pull between a higher quality, audiophile path, and a more portable, lower quality path. In the last decade or so, portability emerged as the resounding winner. Formats like Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio flopped completely, mostly because portable music and digital files were becoming all the rage.

Compared to CDs, most compressed digital files lack range and sound quality. In our mass-market appreciation of music, we took a step backwards. Sound quality, separate from the art of music-making itself, has gotten worse over the years in the ears of the average listener. Pair the compressed audio files with the standard low quality earbuds included with all portable players, and you have an entire musical culture sinking in the sand.

Photography takes an even worse turn. Film was never cheap, and neither were the photo processing costs, but cameras were growing slim and portable. Digital cameras were a great step forward for photography, but the camera phone could ruin a generation of photos.

The low level of quality that we accept from even the best camera phones on the market is intolerable. Once again, we’ve taken a step backward in photography. Current digital cameras don’t quite meet the color reproduction and fine detail of quality film, but the results are close enough even printed on a large piece of photo paper. So, digital is still a step behind the film we’ve all abandoned, but camera phones are the lowest of the digital camera breed.

The quality of a digital camera image relies on a few key factors, none of which camera phones possess. You need quality glass, which is impossible in tiny phone lenses. You need a low ratio of pixels to sensor size; fewer pixels on a larger sensor. But all camera phone sensors are ridiculously small compared to a real, dedicated digital camera. They will never be able to match the quality of even a simple point-and-shoot. Finally, you need excellent image processing. Camera phones can come closest to real cameras with their post-processing, but so far none has been able to match a quality digital P&S.

So, all of a sudden, our photographic history jumps from fine color photos and textured black and white to laughable postage stamp pictures with grainy details and terrible color. It’s like a grimy fog caked up on the lens of the world.

Video might be even stranger, looking back. After all, everything shoots video these days. Besides your phone, your camera shoots video. Your iPod shoots video. Your laptop shoots video. High definition cameras get cheaper all the time, with more advanced image stabilization and low light sensitivity.

To be fair, video has come farther than any other medium. We’ve been refining audio recording and photography for more than a hundred years. Video cameras have only been mainstream for a couple decades, at most. Still, I see the trend towards portability, away from quality. How many YouTube videos, or even iCNN reports, are filmed on a laptop Web cam or with a cell phone camcorder? Too many.

I know there’s a certain Marie Antoinette quality to my argument. Let them eat cake! Of course everyone should be using HD camcorders instead of piddling little QVGA cell phone cameras. But who can afford it? Portable music players like the iPod let people take music everywhere, and the music lasts for days and days. If lower quality music is the price to pay, isn’t it worth the cost? How can it be bad, bringing more music into people’s lives? In photography, the cultural importance of having a camera with you everywhere, even if it’s a cheap camera attached to your mobile, cannot be ignored.

In other words, it’s not a choice between high quality and low quality. It’s a choice between low quality and nothing at all.

I’m not complaining, I’m just pointing out a cultural moment. I think that very soon we’ll have portable devices that are just as good as their full sized counterparts. Cameras, music players, computers, the whole lot. I think that digital storage is going to become so widely available that we’ll laugh at the notion that we had to sacrifice quality in order to save space.

In between, though, we’ll have this moment. We’re straddling, on one side, an analog world that we’re leaving at its pinnacle. It’s full of old tools and we know how to use them as well as we can imagine. On the other side is a new world of digital tools. We’re still learning, still doubling our capacity for knowledge every few months. It’s a rough start, but the future looks bright.

For now, though, we’re in a dark age where knowledge will be lost. Looking back on this time, our future generations will see us transform from artists who painted with oil on canvas and light on silver halide, into a culture that perceives the world around it more perfectly through digital means. We’re in a moment where prehistory becomes history.

If anything, we won’t lose our most factual information to history. We’re doing a great job preserving the written word and the daily news. But when it comes to art and culture, I think some day our civilization will look back and wonder how it all went wrong, all of a sudden.

The Luxman D06 sports a rigid transport mechanism with original disk drive designed from the ground-up. Like its bigger sibling, it incorporates a 24-bit extender to expand redbook’s dynamic range; features a dual-configured TI’s PCM1792A Burr-Brown DAC with a theoretical ultra high signal to noise ratio of 132DB; as well as a low jitter system clock at reduction of 100ps or less in comparing with conventional counterparts.

The player handles SACD in a switchable PCM standard or natively with DSD to a pair of stereo output though a fully-balanced XLR or single-end RCA output. The 34lb’s D06 is slated to ship from March for 525,000 yen (~$5,725).

Connectivity includes two HDMI 1.3 ports, component video, S-video, composite video, optical digital audio, coaxial digital, balanced two-channel stereo analog audio, ethernet, an SD card slot and a serial port, together with a DENON LINK port.  Thankfully the whole thing can be updated with new firmware, as in its current configuration the DVD-A1UD doesn’t support BD-Live.

Denon are promising the DVD-A1UD in Japan by the end of January 2009, priced at 546,000 yen ($5,879) in black or silver.  A European launch will follow in March 2009, priced at €4,000 ($5,046).

Much like the latest Denon flagship DCD-SX, the Levinson is fully balanced design a pair of analog stereo available on balanced or unbalanced output. For $22,00, you get the full benefit of SACD superiority with DSD DACs instead of PCM DACs. Each channel utilizes a pair of 24-bits D/A convertor for 16/44.1 kHz redbook CD, and 1bit/2.8224Mhz DSD playbacks. DSD Conversion is done at native form though DSD DACs without affecting the resulting comparative sound.

In addition to superior DACs, the Levinson has two separate and custom-designed power supplies. Jitter reduction is done with company’s proprietary design by employing a memory buffer in between the transport and Direct Digital Synthesis circuit to diminish the jitter rate.

The 32.5lb No-512 can output digital signal via its RCA (S.PDIF) or XLR (AES) output. The back of the panel has one Ethernet, RS-232, IR and two 3.5mm mini plug terminals. It is slated to ship in late November.

[Harman Japan via Impress]

The reference SX series SACD player employs company’s newly developed Advanced Alpha 32 Processing, a sonic enhancement 16-to-32-bit algorithm with precision upconvert and reduce distortion at micro-level. Independent Power circuitry is designed to provide full separation for digital and analogue sections. Another option is Denon’s DAC Master Clock’s oscillator circuit with extremely low jitter providing precise timing for the D-to-A conversion process.

To maintain superior audio reproduction, Denon has constructed the DCD-SX with a low center gravity and high-rigidity aluminum frame and beam chassis combine with an in-house high precision Advanced SVH Mechanism. The heavy weight and high damping chassis is designed to reduce unwanted resonance and vibration to prevent audio interference during optical pickup.

The unit is fully-balanced with 32 bit/192khz DAC stereo outputs available for single RCA or balanced outputs. The 3rd generation Denon Link is also provided to deliver high quality multichannel SACD in DSD bitstream for compatible AVR or preamp processor. Availability is late November, the Denon DCD-SX weights nearly 60lb and has a retail price of 800,000 yen($7,638)

[via denon]

There’s also some serious audio capabilities on offer, with Dolby virtual surround sound and Sony’s own Sound Reality chip that can play, record and edit SACD audio.  SonicStage Mastering Studio software, preinstalled on the JS1, can upconvert standard CD audio to uncompressed Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format, and then remaster it into 5.1 surround sound.

Blu-ray is an option (although one not mentioned on the European release) and there’s an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam.  Price in Europe is as-yet unknown, but in the US the VAIO JS range will be priced from $999 (with a DVD-RW drive) to $1,449 (with a read-only Blu-ray drive) with availability this Fall.

Press Release:

VAIO JS1-Series

The VAIO JS1-Series all-in-one PC seems to offer buyers the impossible: it has a large, high-resolution screen, yet it takes up less desk space than most notebooks. It achieves this apparent contradiction by virtue of its sleek and stylish design. The compact keyboard can be slotted underneath the main unit when not in use, leaving only a modest footprint on the desk. Even when the keyboard is out, the JS1-Series takes up remarkably little room.

Despite its modest space requirements, the JS1’s main unit incorporates a generously sized 20.1-inch screen complete with multiple lamp technology for exceptional brightness. The display runs at 1680 x 1050 resolution, delivering a huge Windows workspace as well as an imposing widescreen presence when a movie is playing.

All this makes the VAIO JS1 an excellent choice for anyone wanting a rather special home PC. It looks good in almost any room, takes up surprisingly little space and offers an adventurous design a long way away from the standard desktop box. Internally there’s raw power for audio-visual applications thanks to the Intel Core™ 2 Duo processor, plus a performance-enhancing 3GB of memory and a roomy 500GB hard disk providing plenty of space for music, pictures and video.

While the large screen is ideal for photo editing, the JS1 also scores well when it comes to the audio side of things. Movie soundtracks are enhanced by Dolby Home Theatre® technology which creates an impressive virtual surround sound effect, and audiophiles can take advantage of the special features offered by Sony’s Sound Reality signal processor chip built into the system.
This can handle Super Audio CD (SA-CD), allowing the JS1 to record, edit and play music at SA-CD quality, and even upgrade older recordings to the new standard.

Sound Reality can up-convert conventional CD-quality music into uncompressed Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format. Using the pre-installed SonicStage Mastering Studio software, the DSD signal can be re-mastered into 5.1 Super Audio CD, revitalising the original.
As with the VAIO NS1-Series, JS1 comes with VAIO Movie Story and VAIO Music box for easy, largely automated slideshow and playlist creation. The software package also includes the popular and highly regarded Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6 for powerful but easy to use photo editing tools plus Adobe Premiere® Elements 4 for video editing.
To round things off the VAIO JS1 has an integrated Motion Eye webcam, making it perfect for video chat or blogging. With its versatility, eye-catching design and big screen, the JS1-Series is the perfect blend of form and function.

VGN-JS1E/S
- Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor E7200
- OS: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
- Memory: 3072MB (2048MB+1024MB)
- HDD: 500GB
- Others: WLAN 802.11b/g/Draft n & Camera
- Screen: 20.1” X-black LCD with multiple lamp technology, WSXGA+ (1680×1050)
- Optical: DVD±RW/±R DL/RAM
- Graphics: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD

The new Marantz SA-15S2 Reference CD-SACD player promised to bring out the very best sound of SACD, CD and CD-R/RW with a newly developed SACD-M drive, soild chassis, copper shield massive transformer, low-jitter clock, high-speed Discrete Analog Circuit (DAC) with HDAM SA2 Buffer Amps and Cirrus Logic CS4398 as featured in Marantz CD6002, Mcnitosh MCD201, Teac Esoteric SZ-1 or SA-60.

The unit also features custom made electrolytic capacitors along with high-quality films and capacitors founded in their last SA-7S1 reference SACD-CD player. The reference chassis combines aluminum, non magnetic construction with additional shielding and a double-reinforced bottom plate for added isolation.

Available in gold-finish only, the two-Channel SACD player has a pair of analogue outputs, one coaxial and optical output and one optical input. Weights in 30 pounds, SA-15S will be available in October and priced at 157,500 yen (~$1,500) in Japan

[via avwatch]

Outputs include HDMI, digital optical and coax, together with balanced and unbalanced analog options.  The company is promising nigh-on zero distortion, with an SACD frequency range of 2Hz to 100kHz, frequency response of 2Hz to 50kHz(-3dB) and dynamic range of 110dB+.

CD playback, meanwhile, has a 2Hz to 20kHz (± 0.5dB) frequency response and 100dB+ dynamic range.  The SCD-XA5400ES will go on sale in Japan on October 30th, priced at around 176,400 Yen, while it’s also available to preorder in the US for $1,499.

The Marantz BD8002 resembles Denon’s 3800 BDCI, it has Profile 1.1 and Silicon Optix Realta Chipset with internal HD audio decoder up to 7.1 channels. But like many new Blu-Ray players revealed at CES 2008 last month, none of them really offered a complete package.

What happened to a good old Universal Player? Let’s not counting HD-DVD, because we know it’s going away and DVD-A is not likely with a Sony’s Blu-ray transport. But can we at least get the SACD back ? Denon and Marantz are known in the past to provide SACD playback with their universal player, but not with their first entries to the Blu-ray market. Owners of high def audio with analogs option are facing with extra set of 5-7.1 analog inputs from a Blu-ray player. The HDMI crowd will have to deal with extra SACD player. I’m sure the limitation relies heavily on the transport, well, Work on it, Sony! There are some of us still buying your SACD disc, give us a complete package and I refuse to spend $2000 on a Blu-ray player without one.